First time since February

Today, Nicole and I went to church together. It was, I think, the first time I've been to church since going with Nicole to Shoreline (in Monterey, CA). I just realized how similar the name of the church we went to today is to Shorline: Seacoast.

It is an interesting church. You can tell, almost right away that they differentiate themselves from other churches just by going to their website - Seacoast - because instead of calling the churches they have in different cities churches, they call them "campuses". They seem to have a focus on community service - which I like - and overseas missions - which I've always wanted to get into, but could never pull the money together. 

And, even though there were only about 50 to 60 people in the second Sunday morning service (2nd of 2), I would not call this a small church. Because - and this is what made this church the most unique to me - all of the Seacoast campuses seem to be connected under one pastor. Each campus has it's own pastor (Pastor Larry Maio in Columbia) to do some preaching, counseling, praying, administration stuff, etc., but it is the senior pastor, Pastor Greg Surratt located in Mt. Pleasant, SC, who delivers the Sunday message/sermon (whichever you prefer to call it) via video. I am guessing that he is in the church he planted in Mt. Pleasant and we are watching him on a large movie theater sized screen in Columbia. 

I felt that it might seem a little less personal (not being able to interact with the senior pastor if you wanted/needed to), but at the same time, I could feel a larger sense of unity. It might be the begining of one solution to so much separation within the Church in America. There are too many churches and not enough Church going on. But, I am still not 100% sure how I feel about it, but my first impression is that it's a good thing.

So today, Pastor Greg talked about God the "Father". Nicole and I obviously jumped into the middle of a somewhat on-going miniseries in Isaiah. But, the pastor talked about how Isaiah described God as being the "Everlasting Father" (Is. 9:6-7). The message was based on the thought that we view God in His role as Father based on our relationship with and how we view our earthly fathers. He described 4 mostly negative and 1 positive fathering style/category that most fathers fall into and how most people view God and their relationship with and to Him based on which category their father fell under. 

But, I didn't like the wording of the translation used for one of the verses in the sermon - I think it was The Living Bible (TLB) translation of Is. 49:15: 

"Can a mother forget her little child and not have a love for her own son? Yet even if that should be, I will not forget you." (emphasis mine)

But, the New King James Version (NKJV) makes a better contrast, I think:

"Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you." (emphasis mine)

I think the wording/translation of a verse is very important, because even though these two translations seem so close together, they give a slightly different feeling about the power and reality of God's permanence in the lives of His children. The TLB says that a mother may or may not forget her own children but doesn't drive it home as well or make it as poignant as the NKJV when it says that even a mother will surely forget her own children. To us that is an unthinkable thing for a mother to abandon or forsake her children, but the Bible says that mothers will forsake their children, but God will never forsake you. 

But, this sermon didn't tell me something about my dad that I didn't already know - my dad, of the given categories, definitely falls into the 1 positive one. But the sermon did 2 other things:

1. Reminded me that even though I've put God on the back burner, He hasn't put me on the back burner or forgotten about me, and
2. God spoke to me through this sermon about parenting. I was thinking about my dad, and writing a note on the "sermon notes" page they put in the little church flyer thing that my dad has been a good dad. But, the word that actually came to mind was "Steward". My dad has been a good steward. Being a parent (as Nicole and I are about to be learning first-hand) is - besides the notion of having your own kids - to be a steward of His kids. Children truely are a blessing, and in reality they are just on loan. One day they are going to go home, and in what condition has mostly to do with how we, as parents, steward what God has blessed us with. It is our responsability, and our honor to be good stewards of that which God has trusted us with.